Although not all Heavily Indebted Poor countries (HIPC 1999) have benefited from the debt relief initiative and the subsequent Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI 2005), these processes have left us with many enduring lessons. These lessons include the fundamental fact that such relief initiatives are not sustainable.

The following might explain why: firstly they were creditor led, with decisions about who can and cannot get debt relief being made by creditors on premises that are sometimes arbitrary. The debtor countries are on the back foot throughout the process. Secondly the initiatives were a result of pressure from civil society and were not structural and based on fair and just global financial architecture. Thirdly, they were based on a philanthropic attitude which would seem to condone a value system based on a brutal vein of capitalism. [2] It is our hope that today’s debt relief can be based more on a common value system based on a position of justice, equity and human rights. Continue Reading…

Britain’s political elite are attempting to play down the so-called Afghan War Diary—the 92,000 documents published by WikiLeaks, details of which are being serialised in the Guardian newspaper.

For nine years Britain’s ruling circles have presented the intervention in Afghanistan as a fight for the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people. In the face of widespread public opposition to the occupation, both the Labour government and now the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition have insisted that it is morally and politically justifiable … // Continue Reading…

In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, Sola Odunfa wonders why everyone in Nigeria doesn’t turn to kidnapping as crime has become a very lucrative business.

Last night, sleep took a long time coming.

My thoughts merely wandered to the condition of four of my colleagues who were spending their fifth night in the custody of kidnappers somewhere in south-eastern Nigeria, and it occurred to me that I could also be victim. Continue Reading…

WITH a return to global growth, we have observed a resumption of many of the patterns that prevailed before the recession trade crash. Trade surpluses and deficits have been widening out once more, and that has meant a corresponding increase in the foreign exchange reserves accumulated by many emerging markets. In a common telling of the pre-crisis world, emerging markets sought large surpluses in part because they were the flip-side of export-oriented growth (a proven path to development) and in part to insure against the financial crises that battered industrialising countries in the late 1990s. Never again would emerging economies be held prisoner by panicky lenders in developed nations. But those surpluses gave way to a “global savings glut”—a giant pool of credit that was recycled to developed nations to preserve consumption there, and which ultimately fueled dangerous, leveraged financial activity. Continue Reading…

Global Education News is an electronic newsletter where national global education coordinators or practitioners can share global education news and best practices, useful thematic links and educational materials. It also serves as a medium for the North-South Centre global education network national coordinators’ own use.

an exemple of HINDU HARD LINER … to help them to deliver phantasmatically from Cast-System … Received by e-mail, From: pclm francis, Date: 25/07/2010. By R. L. Francis:

Justice Ranganath Misra Commission report has caught the attention of the entire country. It has strengthened the demand of the Church and the Christian organizations to provide reservation for the Dalit Christians. They are holding rallies and meetings to pressurize the Union government to implement the Misra Commission report. Continue Reading…

Dear members, Below is a compilation of requests for information sent to the Global Human Rights Education listserv during the past week. At the bottom of each request you will find an e-mail address, so that you can respond to the request directly.

1. SEEKING INFORMATION ON RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH MENTAL DISABILITIES IN MENTAL ASYLUMS
Dear Friends, I am looking for research results/proposals on the situation of rights of persons with mental disabilities in mental asylums.
Kind regards, Mrs. Epiphania Mfundo, Director for research and documentation, Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance, P.o.Box 2643,Dar es Salaam, Phone: 2110607-9, 2135747-8, Fax: 2111533/2111281, Website, E-mail.

The chief radiological hazard from uranium 238 is alpha radiation. When inhaled or ingested, alpha radiation is the most damaging form of ionising radiation. However, as U238 decays into its daughter products thorium and protactinium, both beta and gamma radiation are released, increasing the radiation burden further. Therefore DU particles must be considered as a dynamic mixture of radioactive isotopes.

Inside the body alpha radiation is incredibly disruptive. The heavy, highly charged particles leave a trail of ionised free radicals in their wake, disrupting finely tuned cellular processes. In one day, one microgram, (one millionth of a gram), of pure DU can release 1000 alpha particles. Each particle is charged with more than four million electron volts of energy; this goes directly into whichever organ or tissue it is lodged in. It only requires 6 to 10 electron volts to break a DNA strand in a cell and these emissions cover a sphere with a radius of 6 cells. Continue Reading…

NOBEL Peace laureate Desmond Tutu has announced that he wants to bow out of public life, and spend more time drinking tea at home with his wife.

“My schedule has grown increasingly punishing over the years,” he told a media briefing in Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral yesterday .
“The time has now come to slow down, to sip, ja, maybe rooibos tea with my beloved wife in the afternoons, to watch cricket and rugby and soccer and tennis,” he said.
“I think I’ve done as much as I can and really do need time for the other things that I have wanted to be doing.
“I do want a little more quiet.”

Tutu, who was awarded the prize in 1984 for his role in the anti-apartheid struggle, said he would turn 79 on October 7 … // Continue Reading…

Published on Current Concerns, Source: Radio DRS, Das Tagesgespräch, by Emil Lehmann with Ruedi Küng, 19 May 2010 – Translation Current Concerns, July 2010.

mw. Today, states and global companies buy up enormous areas of land in the poor countries of this world for little money, in order to produce food for the nutrition of the wealthier peoples or for the production of bio fuel. This is especially offensive in Africa: the local farmer families are driven away from their very small pieces of land that had enabled them, in the best case, just to survive. Now they are impelled to produce fruit for our cans or agricultural fuel for our cars on huge plantations. The authors of the “World Agriculture Report” 2008, who urgently call for maintainance and support of small-scale agriculture, because the increase of hunger can only be stopped that way, are to a large extent ignored. Continue Reading…

Constantin Gurdgiev gave a good overview of why a land tax is essential if Ireland is to build a smart / knowledge economy a few months back on the Renegade Economist. It’s probably worth reviewing his arguments today, the day Fianna Fail ruled out a (admittedly unfair) flat rate property tax. Gurdgiev blames the disparity in taxation between investments in human capital (e.g. increased education) – typically each additional Euro earned is taxed at 53% – and investments in land, where the return on investment is taxed at a much lower 26% or so (sometimes even 0% because of various tax breaks). Continue Reading…

The different explanations given for Africa’s current food crisis seem to miss the real causes of the problem. Mamadou Goita does not believe that the crisis is of an economic nature. Rather, it is the endpoint of the dismantling of Africa’s agricultural sector and its linking to the international market and brutal liberalism. Based on an analysis of the political choices that have contributed to the current situation, notably the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, Goita proposes solutions and decisions that need to be taken to achieve food sovereignty in Africa … //

… WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES FOR GREATER VALORISATION OF LOCAL PRODUCE? Continue Reading…

Published on UNFPA. - Counting everyone is an integral part of ensuring that we take everyone into account. Good demographic data is critical for planning schools, health systems and public transportation, for designing policies based on future population projections, for monitoring the effectiveness of service delivery and much more.

This year World Population Day highlights the importance of data for development … (full text and mesages in different UN-languages).

In accepting General McChrystal’s resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. “Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks.” he stated, “We persist and we persevere.” Yet, President Obama and the U.S. people don’t face up to the ugly truth that, in Afghanistan, the U.S. has routinely committed atrocities against innocent civilians. By ducking that truth, the U.S. reinforces a sense of exceptionalism, which, in other parts of the world, causes resentment and antagonism … // Continue Reading…

The identity of the murderer of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova has been established and the individual who arranged her murder will soon be found, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.

“Investigations are currently underway of not only identifying the hit man who is already on a wanted list, but also the individual who ordered this terrible crime,” Medvedev told journalists during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel … //

… Merkel assured the journalists that she had talked with Medvedev about the murder of Estemirova and understood that investigations were underway. Continue Reading…

The U.S. Supreme Court was requested to review the constitutional validity of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Introduced by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the bill was adopted by an overwhelming majority in response to the Oklahoma City bombing and enthusiastically signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

One of the clauses prescribing that a terrorist suspect can file only one petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a protection against illegal imprisonment) came under heavy fire. In its decision Felker versus Turpin (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that the limitation was not in breach of article 1 Section 9 paragraph 2 of the Constitution. True, in itself, it does not constitute an extension of the temporary detention even if, after a first appeal rejection, there is no mechanism to prevent the temporary detention from becoming permanent. Continue Reading…

HAND and its member organisations welcome decision No.: ICC-02/05-01/09 adopted by Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, 12 July 2010, and by which the ICC issued a second arrest warrant against President Omar Al Bashir on the charges of genocide. The Court found that President Al Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur. This decision affirmed our long held views that the government of Sudan has indeed committed genocide in Darfur and that top government officials are personally responsible for the commission of this crime. Continue Reading…

July 15, 2010-New York, NY-Today, the United Nations Human Rights Committee will begin its review of the human rights record of the state of Colombia. As part of this review process, MADRE will present a shadow report prepared in conjunction with a coalition of Colombian human rights organizations to counter the positive assessment offered by their government. Continue Reading…

In the postwar history of the Federal Republic, German chancellors tend to disappear once they pursue political goals that deviate from the Washington global agenda too much.

In the case of Gerhard Schroeder, it involved two unforgiveable “sins.” The first was his open opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The second, far more serious strategically, was his negotiations with Russia’s Putin to bring a major new natural gas pipeline directly from Russia, bypassing then-hostile Poland, to Germany. Today the first section of that Nord Stream gas pipeline has reached the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastal town of Lubmin on the Baltic Sea, making Lubmin into a geopolitical pivot for Europe and Russia. Continue Reading…

New publication: Audrey Osler, Students’ Perspectives on Schooling, ISBN: 9780335223602, Open University Press.

Students’ Perspectives on Schooling explores how schools might be transformed for the better, by giving greater weight to the views of students in line with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

LAHORE—Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that all segments of society should play their due role in eradicating terrorism and extremism. He expressed these views in a meeting with Governor Punjab Salman Taseer at the Prime Minister’s House here on Saturday. The Prime Minister said that recent terrorist attacks in different parts of the country reflected the mindset of terrorists that they had no regard for any religion, faith or belief … //

… The Prime Minister said law enforcement agencies had been directed to take appropriate security measures to ensure that development projects continue as per schedule. He also called upon elected representatives to focus on the improvement of lives of the common man in the country, adding they needed to demonstrate a political will for the welfare of the masses who had chosen them as their representatives. (full text).

Twelve Iranian women and three men are on death row awaiting execution by stoning despite an apparent last-minute reprieve for a mother of two who had been facing the horrific sentence after being convicted of adultery.

Human rights groups and activists welcomed a wave of international publicity and protests over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, who was awaiting execution in the western Iranian town of Tabriz after what her lawyer called an unjust trial and a sham conviction … // Continue Reading…

NEW YORK, 7 JULY 2010 – UNICEF and partners today announced minimum standards for education to help the 25 million children in countries and territories affected by conflict who are currently missing out on their right to primary education.

“The Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response and Recovery” updates a highly successful handbook that was translated into 23 languages and used in more than 80 countries by education and development professionals during emergencies. Continue Reading…

Resolution of the UN General Assembly (A/RES/63/303) of 9 July 2009 – Published on Current Concerns, part 2, (see also part 1).

Two excerpts: … 27 Migrant workers are among the most vulnerable in the context of the current crisis. Remittances, which are significant private financial resources for households in countries of origin of migration, have been seriously affected by rising unemployment and weak earnings growth among migrant workers, particularly in advanced economies. We should resist unfair and discriminatory treatment of migrant workers and the imposition of unreasonable restrictions on labour migration in order to maximize the benefits of international migration, while complying with the relevant national legislation and applicable international instruments. We recognize the important contribution of migrant workers for both countries of origin and destination. We commit ourselves to allowing labour migration to meet labour market needs. Continue Reading…

Noble Ideas, and Feel-Good Moments – Published on political affairs pa, by Ramzy Baroud, July 1, 2010.

When the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were first declared, they were met with a sense of promise. A decade later, despite all the official insistence that all is on track, it is increasingly clear that this approach to development was flawed from the onset.

For ten years, numerous committees, international and local organizations and independent researchers have tirelessly mulled over all sorts of indicators, numbers, charts and statistical data relating to extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, child mortality, and so on. Continue Reading…

… When I asked the people who invited me here why didn’t they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion
too localized.

I don’t know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars … (full long text).

G8 member countries will commit $5 billion USD towards maternal and child health over the next five years. Though this is welcomed by AMREF, it is well below expectations … //

… Specifically, AMREF recommends integrating NGOs and ministries of health in the design and delivery of primary health care services. To be effective, strategies must include the following:

Address the crisis in shortages of health workers with training and support for the right mix of community health workers (midwives, nurses, health extension workers) who are paid a living wage and integrated into the formal national health systems

This is the wiki note of the day on malaria. The following five African countries register the highest number of cases of malaria every year and together they make for more than half of malaria deaths in the world: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan and Nigeria. In the last decade, the following eight African countries halved malaria infection rates: Eritrea, Rwanda, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Cape Verde and Sao Tome. This year, Zambia also joined the lucky club of eight countries that have successfully managed their malaria problem. The nine countries have registered this astounding success by combining the following three methods:

1. widespread distribution of malaria nets and awareness campaigns on the benefits of using these nets.

One of the major problems of Ethiopia’s youth is that the older generation refuses to get out of the way. At the conference Zenawi used an interesting analogy involving a traffic jam to describe his sense of the intergenerational leadership succession. He said it was necessary to create an orderly succession in the transfer of power from one generation to another in the same way as traffic on the highway should flow ‘smoothly’ and in an ‘orderly process’. It is ironic that he does not see himself as the principal cause of the 20-year total traffic jam on the Ethiopian political freeway, but his analogy is instructive. Speaking particularly to the older generation opposition, we need to realise that we are cluttering and congesting the political highway with our old clunkers and jalopies. Continue Reading…

2 short Excerpts from this e-mail:
Submission to the Presiding Judge, Auckland High Court,
The Appeal to be heard on 28 June 2010 at 11.45 am
(the whole case is explained on the link as follow: Freedom is not an impossible dream, published on Houston Independent Media Center, by Anthony Ravlich, June 29, 2010).

… I adopted the universal declaration of human rights as my ethical belief in 1991 and have been promoting human rights ever since. This ethical belief also includes economic, social and cultural rights. The latter defines poverty in human rights terms but these rights are not included in New Zealand human rights law – usually it is just described in social justice terms which not being claims to rights cannot be dealt with by a court … //

… Where New Zealand’s leaderships since 1984 went wrong, in my view, is because they fell into one of humankind’s oldest traps – they thought they knew all the answers. This is best described by Bertrand Russell in Unpopular Essays: “Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man has come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false … To know the truth is more difficult than most men suppose, and to act with ruthless determination in the belief that truth is the monopoly of their party is to invite disaster” (p157, Ideas that have harmed mankind, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009) … (full long text).
For more, please contact him by mail.

Lucy King, a scientist and researcher into animal behavior has recently published a paper in which she presents her findings with respect to a series of experiments she conducted in Africa. Basically, she argues that elephants are really afraid of bees. Of course, one would immediately ask: how could this help Africa or be of any use to everyday Africans?

As it turns out, this discovery might have profound implications for people living in parts of Africa where elephants are a constant presence (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, among others). Violent encounters between Africans and elephants happen frequently as elephants invade crops and plantations across Africa. In addition, elephants cause property damage and even life losses on some occasion. Continue Reading…

WASHINGTON – Organizations in the financial services sector have deployed at least 1,447 former federal employees to lobby Congress and federal agencies since the beginning of 2009, according to a joint analysis of federal disclosure records and other data released today by Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics. ((Download the full report: Financial Revolving Doors, 14 pdf-pages).

This small army of registered financial services sector lobbyists includes at least 73 former members of Congress, of whom 17 served on the banking committees of either the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate. At least 66 industry lobbyists worked for these committees as staffers, while 82 additional lobbyists once worked for congressional members who currently serve on these key committees. Continue Reading…

Why is it that the U.S. state apparatus is standing in the way of any serious medical investigation into Mogellons disease?

For the simple reason that it would inexorably lead to the covert biological war programmes of the 1950’s. Hank Albarelli lifts the veil on a period – which may not necessarily be over – when the military-industrial complex proclaimed to safeguard the “free world” while testing new experiments on the civilian population that it purported to protect; a period when members of the medical profession – including the CDC – developed diseases that they should have been preventing but which they used instead to contaminate the very people they were supposed to protect … (full long text, including an interview video with Dr. Edward Spencer, parts 1 to 4).